Keep the Car Running
by glamaphonic
Summary: Alternate title: Derek and Chloe Touch Each Other's Junk.


**Keep the Car Running**

* * *

The late afternoon sun beamed down through the trees, the grass below dappled with little spots of light that slipped between the leaves. It was picture perfect — an idyllic establishing shot. I winced reflexively and looked up from my writing at the crack of flesh against flesh. I wasn't fast enough. Whoever had taken the hit was already back up and part of the knot of muscled limbs and playful snarling that was making its way down the makeshift field. A few scrawled numbers in the top margin of the script I was poking at were the only indicator of my involvement in the spectacle. I was ostensibly keeping score, but when the Pack played like this — even all in human form — the score wasn't really important.

I suppose I could have been insulted by being relegated to a Girlfriend Task. _Oh, Chloe, you just sit over there out of the way._ But at barely over five feet and built like a bird, I wasn't keen on rough-housing with half a dozen superstrong werewolves no matter how little they were interested in hurting me.

A flash of brown appeared against the backdrop as the football popped up into the air before being reclaimed. Derek held it in one hand as he sprinted off. Another smack, and this time I saw the hit. Nick Sorrentino, one of my boyfriend's elder packmates, had just laid Derek out flat. Nick grinned — pretty much his default expression — and Derek scowled — definitely his default expression — before the Alpha herself sprang onto Nick's back, taking him down so that they both landed on Derek in a heap. It took about three seconds for the others to pile on Elena in a tangled mass.

I closed my notebook, hooked my pen on the cover, and stood, brushing bits of grass off of my jeans. When things devolved into a giant wrestling match that was usually a sign that they were winding down. Plus, it was getting late. Mid-summer meant it wouldn't be dark for quite a while, but Jeremy, the former Alpha, and his girlfriend, Jaime, had already taken Elena and her husband Clay's twin kids out to pick up dinner. One thing you didn't mess around with was a werewolf's dinnertime.

Derek managed to squeeze out from the bottom of the pile and made a beeline towards me. My stomach did its normal flip-flop; I'd long ago stopped waiting for that to calm down. He smiled as he reached me, and I smiled in return when he leaned down to give me a not-insignificant kiss, ignoring the catcalling from the others. I didn't even blush. That sort of ease and comfort with the Pack had been hard won and neither I or Derek had any compunctions left about taking advantage of it.

To say that it had been weird at first would be beyond understatement. Everything had been weird at first, really. It all happened in a big, unbelievable whirlwind. The Pack found out that the St. Clouds had been funding experiments on young werewolves, then the Interracial Council got involved, and they had powerful friends. Before we could process what was going on, the Cortez Cabal brought the hammer down on the Edison Group, and the St. Clouds, weakest of the North American Cabals, couldn't really stop the strongest from doing whatever they liked. They'd cut their losses and written it off as an independent operation gone wrong. While no one quite thought that the Edison Group was entirely done for, none of its members nor any member of the St. Cloud Cabal would so much as look at us sideways from a block away these days.

There we were, the triumphant heroes, all ready for the victory montage and the uplifting credits song. Except we'd been running and hiding for what seemed like so long that it was surreal to try to take up a (relatively) normal life again. One without fake names and fake backstories to keep track of. One without looking over our shoulders constantly. We still looked over them — we weren't stupid — and we were part of the mainstream supernatural community now in a big way whether we liked it or not, but it was like going back down to general alertness when you'd been stalled out at DEFCON 1.

The North American werewolf Pack's marked interest in Derek didn't really help. For the first handful of visits, it'd been a full family affair. That fact was one of only two things that allowed Aunt Lauren to be convinced I should go. The other was that Jaime Vegas wasn't just Jeremy's girlfriend. She was also the necromancer representative for the Interracial Council, which essentially made her _the_ person to give me some extra training. All in all, though, Derek bringing an entourage really just made a strained situation worse. Werewolves aren't known for being sociable under the best of circumstances.

Derek was confused, hopeful, and awkward, which, like most things with him, translated to general annoyance. Kit and Simon were tense and wary, as if the Pack wanted to spirit Derek away from them and keep him forever. Though, considering that ordeal with the Cains a few years back, it wasn't really an unfair assumption.

Things calmed down eventually. Derek made clear that he had no intention of moving to Stonehaven and that he already had a family. Whatever werewolf instinct he was supposed to have that made him prefer his "own kind" had just never surfaced. He enjoyed the camaraderie, those weeks of not feeling quite so different, and the instruction on his werewolf nature, but that was all. In response, Elena made clear that they had no intention of even attempting to replace his family. They were just willing to offer him an extension of sorts — and support if he wanted it. Derek did.

Kit and Simon stopped tagging along after that, and everyone on both sides breathed a sigh of relief. I kept going. It wasn't out of insecurity. I mean, sure, if there had been a female werewolf around that wasn't either an elementary schooler or old enough to be Derek's mother, I might have had a few moments of pause. As it stood, I just didn't like being away from Derek that long. He didn't like it either. Aunt Lauren didn't like our solution. (We'd given up on her ever getting over her prejudice against Derek.) I was forced to remind her that I was almost eighteen so, even if she could stop me then — which was questionable — she wouldn't be able to stop me for long. It hadn't been a fun conversation, but I'd started growing up the day I escaped from Lyle House and no one could turn back that clock.

Unlike Kit and Simon, the Pack didn't mind me at all for reasons that Derek and I still mostly talked around. No matter how much their human sides told them otherwise, some part of the wolf in them would always see interloper when it looked at Derek's brother and father. The wolf looked at me, sniffed around a bit, and saw Derek's mate.

Elena came over and scooped up my notebook and messenger bag, abandoned on the ground, while Derek's hands were still on my waist.

"Dinner in an hour, you two," she said mildly before heading back towards the house. Clay followed her silently, while Nick, Reese, and Noah paused briefly to hassle Derek more. He swatted at them before turning and leading me deeper into the sprawling forest that dominated much of Stonehaven.

The whole Pack would Change and go for a run together in a few nights, but mine and Derek's walks in the woods were our thing and here, at least, no one really bothered to question it.

We strolled through the forest, fingers entwined, Derek pacing me with his long strides. I peered up at him, trusting him to keep me from tripping over anything in our path. The mushy look I was giving him would have been pathetic if I hadn't known he spent no small amount of time looking at me the same way. His dark hair was growing out again, shielding his green eyes from my view as it hung in his face. I let my eyes travel downwards instead.

When I'd first met Derek, he'd hidden not just behind his hair, but under baggy jeans and sweats, desperate to look less intimidating since he couldn't make himself feel less dangerous. I'd never presume to say he was "over" the way he'd been made to feel back then — especially since those attitudes were still rampant in the supernatural community — but along the way he'd stopped hiding. Derek had grown into himself, gotten more comfortable in his skin, and I knew how much that meant to him.

The fact that it also meant his fitted black t-shirt and properly sized jeans let me admire the muscles in his broad shoulders and the lines of his narrow waist and hips much more easily, well, that was just a bonus.

We broke through into a clearing, the thicker foliage overhead casting the place into a false twilight. Derek spun me around, causing a giggle to erupt from my throat, before he backed me against a tree and kissed me again. I stretched up on my tiptoes for a moment to return the kiss before dropping my heels then hopping up to wrap my legs around his waist. He pressed me harder into the tree, our chests flush, as he cushioned the back of my head with his hand. A growl vibrated in his chest as I deepened the kiss, then made it out of his mouth when I broke away.

"Aren't you going to Change?" I asked, grinning.

"In a bit." It came out a low rumble, his breath warm against my lips as he resumed our kiss.

Heat seemed to radiate out from the point where our mouths joined, sweeping through my body, coiling in my belly. I gasped into his mouth at the increasingly familiar feeling of my nipples, sensitive and pebbled, rubbing against my bra and shirt as our chests pressed together. My hands fought for purchase in his hair, then I arched my back. Derek groaned as I slipped down a bit, the juncture of my thighs getting closer to where we both wanted it. I shouldn't have, but I did it again. Another groan and he hitched me back up with one hand under my knee. I tightened my legs around him, holding myself more firmly in place to keep us both from temptation, then started and nearly fell when a loud chime sounded from inside my jeans pocket.

Derek steadied me, but the chime went off again. Then twice more. I let my legs drop and he lowered me the rest of the way to the ground with a beleaguered snarl. I pulled out my phone to turn it on silent, but my eyes caught the truncated message previews on the screen and I instinctively bumped back against the tree, keeping it out of Derek's line of sight. Subtle.

He sighed, hands deep in his pockets, and mumbled about getting ready. I turned my back as he walked a few feet away to strip — not because I hadn't seen it before, but because the way he'd been using his hands in his pockets to pull the front of his jeans away from himself meant that there was more that he didn't want me to see just then. I tapped on the 'messages' icon and opened the disruptive texts.

The entire chain was from Tori. She demanded Stonehaven gossip of a very specific sort, complained about Simon, extolled the smarmy douchiness of her Database Structures professor in the summer course she was taking, and asked in none-too-delicate terms how certain Things were going with Derek and me.

The first, I wasn't touching. Tori had come along on some of those early trips to Stonehaven too. In her case, less out of concern for Derek and more because Savannah Levine was also a regular visitor. As the only other known witch/sorcerer hybrid (at the time, anyway; Savannah's own foster parents had put an end to that, though their six-month-old daughter wasn't really relevant to the conversation just yet), she was pretty much the only one who could give Tori unique guidance and perspective into her powers. However, since Tori somehow catalyzed a rather disruptive fiasco involving herself, Noah, and Reese — werewolf hormones and their territorial nature had a way of making innocent crushes and not-so-innocent flirtation take intense turns — it was decided that it would be better if she and Savannah stuck to email, phone calls, and Tori visiting her while she was at home in Portland for a while. Noah sulked, Reese pretended it was no big deal, and Tori agreed, declaring that even Australian accents weren't sexy enough to make up for that much drama. That didn't stop her from peppering me with questions before, during, and after every visit to Syracuse.

The messages about Simon and her creeper professor were Normal Tori Stuff and could be discarded. Tori wasn't happy if she couldn't find some way that her half-brother was being the worst — that was their sibling thing, apparently — and cursing out miscellaneous assholes was practically her hobby.

It was the last that I really didn't want Derek seeing. I was sure he knew that I talked to Tori about us, but I didn't want him to know in how much detail or how much of it was legitimately solicited advice. Not that he could have missed Tori's rather obvious hinting and teasing for the last year or so.

Derek and I had been young, really young, when we'd first gotten together and neither of us had any relationship experience to draw on. The only other boy I'd ever even kissed had been Simon. And that was mercifully brief considering it happened during our single disastrous date, back when he was still hoping he was reading me and Derek wrong and I was still in deep denial. Because we'd been young and inexperienced, Derek and I had been okay with waiting to take our relationship further. More than okay with it, neither of us had been ready and the entire thing seemed completely terrifying.

Not to mention, as hard as it is to believe, when you're on the run for your life there really are other things to think about. Then there was the part where we were living in close quarters with his dad, who was worried that Derek's werewolf instincts would get us in way too deep way too fast, and my intensely overprotective aunt, who expected us to just hold hands and gaze at each other — and even that not too much. Add in Tori and Simon, who didn't mean to be in the way, but managed it all the same, and we were direly short on opportunity.

We'd done… things, of course — where there's a will there's a way — but we'd kept it above the waist for a while, and when it went below, the clothes had stayed on. Tori had given me hell for it since, as she put it, Derek and I were "disgustingly married" anyway. But for all her jokes and jibes, when I had decided two months ago that I did feel ready — really ready — she'd been the one to get me birth control pills so that I didn't even have to think about having that conversation with Aunt Lauren.

Derek knew. I didn't ask how, but we'd talked about it. Consequently, that just made the opportunity question pop up again. What we hadn't quite managed to put into words was that the next trip to Stonehaven was as perfect a chance as we were ever likely to get. Still, it was understood.

I quickly tapped out a reply to Tori, back still turned and deliberately ignoring the sound of Derek's clothes rustling.

_on walk with D. talk later._

The message had barely sent before Tori's reply came back.

_plz don't tell me ur boning in a forest. even u 2 deserve better._

I snorted, halfway between indignation and amusement.

_no! ofc we're not. _

I frowned. We were making a concerted effort not to anyway.

_talk LATER._ I finished, then hit 'send' and turned the phone on silent. After consideration, I turned off vibrate as well, then spun to face Derek.

He was sitting in the middle of the clearing in his boxers, arms crossed as he stared at me. I did a decent job not being distracted by the way that made his biceps bulge.

"It was Tori," I explained in response to his stare.

"Uh huh," Derek replied, waiting.

"Nothing important," I insisted. He tilted his head, studying me as I came closer, then shrugged his shoulders, letting it go. He did, however, wrap one hand around my ankle when I got near enough and topple me onto his lap.

"Bully," I reprimanded fondly, then kissed him. He leaned into it, one hand stroking my thigh and the other making circles on my back. I pulled back just a bit, then trailed kisses along his jaw and down to his neck. He swallowed convulsively, his breathing getting harsher, hands going slack—

And I used the opening to scamper off of his lap before slapping his back encouragingly.

"Well, get to it," I said.

His lips curved and he looked at me, gaze hot, before getting on all fours, eyes on the ground. I scooted closer again and absently rubbed his back, soothing where I'd slapped him as his skin heated under my hands.

It didn't take so long anymore. I couldn't pretend that it had gotten easier. Nothing could ever compare to the agony of those first few attempts, I don't think, but there was always still a point where he looked so miserable as his body contorted, his muscles and bones and tendons twisting and reshaping themselves, that I marveled that he could put himself through it at all. Then, it ended, as it always did. And he was Derek, but he was also a massive black wolf with piercing green eyes.

He slumped on his side as I continued to rub his back, my cheek against his coarse fur. His tongue lolled out as he panted, then he chuffed and wriggled beneath me. I sat up so that he could stand. He ran back and forth across the clearing a few times, darting around me before nudging my back, urging me to get up. Derek never did tire of hide-and-seek, but we'd dropped the pretense of him taking a turn hiding.

I took off at his insistent prodding and looked for a likely spot.

* * *

It didn't take him long to find me. Over the years, I'd gotten good at hiding. Very good. It was a useful skill, but eventually Derek knew me too well, and at this point he knew the Stonehaven forest too well, for me to successfully hide from him for long. He mock-chased me for a bit, nipping playfully at my heels before backing me into a corner, rearing up on his hind legs and putting his forepaws on my shoulders. His way of saying "gotcha."

I surrendered, dropping into a kneel to rub his neck and shoulders. He luxuriated in that, tail wagging — though I'd never embarrass him by pointing it out — before nuzzling at me with his cold nose. He nuzzled at my neck, then my hair, then my neck again, as I laughed. He paused, looked at me with that same head tilt, licked the side of my face once, then trotted off back towards the clearing where we'd left his clothes.

I got up and followed at a leisurely pace. It was starting to get dark, but there were few places I felt safer than the woods at Stonehaven. Not to mention, being aware that the things that go bump in the night had absolutely no problem bothering me regardless of the time of day took some of the mystique away from nightfall. There was death in this forest; a lot of it. It was like a low hum in the back of my mind. Not just animals either. People had died too. But they were all long gone, passed over, and I wasn't going to disturb them.

When I reached the clearing, Derek was sitting on the ground again, human this time, t-shirt and jeans back on. He was a little sweaty and still out of breath. I wasn't hurt that he Changed back without me, but I was a confused. He usually waited if he could. I smiled at him, pushing aside my puzzlement. He got to his feet and crossed the distance between us so quickly that I didn't have time to think before he crushed his lips against mine. I stumbled backwards with the force of it, but he caught me, one arm banded around my waist before bringing my body flush with his.

I could feel him — or more precisely I couldn't _not_ feel him — hard against my belly. It wasn't new, exactly. His discretion earlier had mostly been because we were interrupted. Derek was too practical to pretend that it wasn't happening and, frankly, I wouldn't have been preparing to have sex with my boyfriend in the very near future if I couldn't deal with the fact that he got erections when we made out. All the same, he usually avoided calling such direct attention to it when there wasn't anything to be done about it. We needed to get to dinner in all of ten minutes and temptation aside, I knew neither of us really wanted our first time to be in the middle of Stonehaven's forest.

Derek felt me tense, even though it was just for a second, and pulled back.

"Sorry," he murmured. "Sorry." His pupils were wide and he was still radiating heat from his Change. There was something desperate in his gaze, like I was a drink of water after a long trip through the desert. I'd heard the others in the Pack talk. Apparently, the adrenaline from the Change could affect them that way. Clay and Elena's escapades were pretty infamous. I just hadn't seen it before in Derek. Maybe it was the knowledge that we'd finally decided to go all the way, like it hit some switch in his brain and boom. All I knew was, I couldn't bring myself to turn away.

"It's okay," I whispered and pulled his head back down to mine. He kissed me like he wanted to devour me and I kissed him back, rocking against him. He mumbled another apology into my mouth as he wrapped one hand in my hair before kissing my neck. No, not just kissing it. I could feel his chest expand and contract with his sharp inhalations.

"God, Chloe," he said. "I don't- you smell so good."

The rumble of his voice against my skin sent a delicious tingle through my entire body. He backed me into a tree again, still kissing me. The bark was rough against my back, even through my shirt, but I didn't care. He fumbled near my waistband and popped open the button of my jeans. I opened my stance slightly, expecting him to slip a large hand into my pants, but he tugged instead, and I felt the sudden breeze as they rode low on my hips.

"Derek," I said, in a half-hearted protest. "N-not out here."

"I'm not," he assured me. "I'm not. We're not. I'll stay dressed, I just-"

He slid his hand back up until it slipped under my shirt and pressed flat against my stomach. I grasped at his shoulders, hard muscles moving under my palms. He kissed me again, mouth hot, then knelt and pressed his lips just beneath my navel. I shivered.

"I just want to try something. I promise we won't- not here-"

I nodded so vigorously that I knocked my head against the tree trunk.

Derek slid my jeans down my legs until they pooled at my ankles, then coaxed my legs slightly farther apart. He kissed my knee and the inside of my thigh. Then, he hooked a finger in my panties, shifted them out of the way, and licked me.

I yelped. Loud enough that I slapped my hand over my mouth. He did it again, his tongue rolling against me and I'm pretty sure I'd never made the sound that came out of my mouth before. We'd agreed that we wouldn't have sex out in the woods. I was sure that if I asked Tori or any of our other friends, they would have said this didn't count. I was just as certain that I wouldn't agree. It sure as hell felt like it counted.

Derek was holding me in place by one of my hips, which was good because my knees were wobbling. Then he shifted, and lifted my leg onto his shoulder. My cheeks and ears flamed, bright red I was sure, when I looked down at him, dark head bobbing just slightly as he lapped and sucked at me, his face buried between my legs.

It was the kind of angle that you'd never get in a mainstream love scene; those were concerned with soft lighting and sanitized, fantasy versions of sex. Then again, this was also the kind of thing that would never even happen in a mainstream love scene. Hesitantly, I carded my fingers through Derek's hair, clutching, and impossibly he pushed even closer to me, his lips on my clit.

I came with a high-pitched squeak that I would have been really humiliated by if I still had the wherewithal to care at all. Derek caught me before I could slump boneless to the forest floor and get some very unpleasant splinters from sliding down the tree. He kissed my stomach again, then gently slid my panties back into place. He helped me step back into my jeans, then pulled them halfway up before I regained enough motor function to take over.

He stayed where he'd been kneeling, gnawing his lower lip, not quite looking at me. I touched his hair again and he finally looked up.

"I didn't… plan that," he said, haltingly. "I just…"

He trailed off and exhaled heavily.

"It wasn't weird was it?" he asked finally, almost sheepish.

In all honesty, I'd actually always kind of felt like it _would_ be weird. I'd never been more ecstatic to be wrong.

"No, it was not weird at all," I said emphatically, then let the languor in my bones win out as I leaned forward and threw my arms around him. Derek chuckled, then lifted me up and carried me back to the house.

We both ran upstairs to wash up before dinner, but when we came back down there were too many sly looks and too much deliberate casualness for us to think we'd really fooled anyone. Luckily, as soon as the food came out, everyone had more important things to think about.

After dinner, I went off with Jaime to Jeremy's study for our "lesson." Mostly to avoid Clay and Derek growling at each other in the family room.

During Derek's first semester at NYU, Clay had been doing a guest lecture series. He and Elena pretended that it wasn't so they could keep an eye on Derek, but everyone knew the truth. Unfortunately, Derek made the mistake of actually taking Clay's class. The combination of Derek being Derek, Clay being Clay, and weird werewolf dominance business that I didn't even want to untangle meant that they spent the entire semester arguing. About everything. Derek had finished up his freshman year last month and he and Clay still found time to fight about the grade Clay gave him on his first response paper. In the first week of school.

Elena said that Clay wasn't really angry and I knew the same was true of Derek. It amused them both; that was obvious. But that didn't make it any more fun to listen to for the millionth time. Maybe if Clay decided to do another lecture series next semester, I'd have some personal experience to make the whole battle royale more interesting. I was starting at Tisch in the fall. Until then, however, retreating to the study with Jaime was the way to go.

Our lessons hadn't been much more than hanging out for a while. My powers were different. Really different. Different enough that there was only so much a normal necro could teach me about them and even then it was more a trial and error sort of thing — figuring out how they did things, then reverse engineering how I did the same thing so that I could have more control. The distinction between Jaime and my last disastrous teacher was that Jaime was actually interested in helping me. She'd also seen enough "impossible" things that she didn't look at me like I was some kind of abomination.

We mostly talked about my life, her shows, sometimes about the Interracial Council. I had a strong idea that Jaime was grooming me on that front, but I didn't really mind. It felt good to have someone in the supernatural world see me as something besides a threat or a curiosity. The majority of the summoning we did was calling up Jaime's spirit guide, Eve Levine, and sometimes, rarely, my friend Liz. That was one thing I could say I definitely disliked about the way things had changed since we'd taken up normal lives.

Liz wasn't around nearly so much anymore. If I really needed her, if I really, really wanted to see her, I could get in contact. But she wasn't a constant comforting presence the way she had been for those first years, and I missed her. I'd hinted at Eve once about whether Liz could be my spirit guide, since Eve seemed so much more available to Jaime, even counting her sporadic mysterious absences. Eve was evasive; she was that way about a lot of things. There were rules. Still, something about the way she looked at me when I asked gave me a shred of hope. And Liz did look somehow… better on the occasions when I did see her.

The first time she appeared to me without her Minnie Mouse nightshirt and slouchy giraffe socks, I thought I'd summoned the wrong spirit. She'd laughed and started chattering about how she could make herself any outfit she wanted which she'd had to do when, surprise, she grew a bit and her nightshirt ensemble didn't seem appropriate anymore. I laughed with her, and the leaden lump of grief that had sat in my stomach since the day I realized the Edison Group had murdered Liz lifted a little. She wouldn't be stuck for all eternity as that wide-eyed kid who just wanted desperately for someone to help her and got only the worst of betrayals for her trouble. She got to grow up too, and that was more than I could have hoped for.

When Derek and I got in the night before, Jaime and I had discussed trying to test my range with some long distance summoning, but this was one of the times when Eve wasn't available to her and we didn't like to do things that pushed me too far without Eve there to smack down anything nasty that might pop up. So instead, we nursed our after-dinner cappuccinos and chatted about nothing.

I was, admittedly, distracted, but I didn't notice how much so until I realized Jaime was just looking at me, smiling, and I hadn't responded to her for at least a full minute.

"Things going well with you and Derek, huh?" she asked.

It was a normal Jaime question. Obviously, she was one of the few non-werewolves who had no misgivings at all about my dating Derek. Talking to her like I might have Aunt Lauren under different circumstances definitely filled a hole. Jaime didn't pry and she wasn't condescending, but this also wasn't the normal Jaime way of asking.

It was nothing big, just… she usually didn't have quite that much sparkle in her eyes. I panicked a little. Mine and Derek's comfort with the fact that no one in the Pack would really care if we had sex didn't mean that we actually wanted to talk about it with them. Especially with Jaime, who had a tendency towards raunchy anecdotes.

Jeremy was definitely pretty hot for an old guy and Jaime was about ten times more stunning and glamorous than I could ever dream of being, but I really didn't want to know anything about their sex life, necromancer-werewolf union or not.

"Things are fine," I managed, stilted.

The waves of tension pouring off of me must have made her take pity because her smile got a little wider, but she only said:

"I'll bet they are."

Then, she changed the subject and let me babble about what classes I was planning to take, until Logan and Kate appeared to demand we both join in on some manner of complicated ritual for their bedtime.

* * *

It was 2AM when I crept down the hall towards Derek's bedroom. The sneaking was really just for show, me instinctively acting out the typical tropes of the situation to soothe my nerves. Jaime was the only person in the house without superhearing and she clearly already knew. And really, sneaking into Derek's room wouldn't do anything about noise that would come after I was in there. If anyone wanted to listen, they would. At Stonehaven, you just had to trust that no one particularly wanted to listen.

Derek opened the door as soon as I arrived outside of it, further proving the futility of my attempts at stealth. He ushered me in and closed the door behind me. The light was dim, but enough to see by even with my night vision being nowhere near as good as Derek's. He wore loose sweatpants and a tank top, his skin taking on a golden cast in the low light. That was for my benefit too. I knew Derek usually slept in just his shorts, but I guess under the circumstances he didn't want me to feel like he was in too much of a hurry.

Tori had insisted on taking me lingerie shopping before we left for Stonehaven. Unfortunately, most of it was either a bit too advanced for Derek and me or made me look like some sort of creepy lolita. We'd finally settled on a simple silk chemise nightgown that hung to my knees, with modest slits on the sides. Tori thought it was boring; I actually felt good in it and that was all I really wanted.

Derek gave me a tight, tiny smile, nostrils flaring as he looked at me, and my heart broke just a little. I wanted this to work, to be good for both of us, and most importantly I just _really_ wanted it to happen, but there was a knot of fear I couldn't seem to shake. Since age fifteen, I'd grown exactly three quarters of an inch taller and gone up one cup size (mostly). I knew how Derek felt about me. I understood it in my head and my heart and deep down in parts of my being that I couldn't describe or name. But something was still whispering to me anyway: _What if you're just not enough?_ Then there was the logistical side of the equation. I was small and Derek… wasn't. I'd worked myself up to broaching that topic with Tori, but since I drew the line at "estimating" for her based on touch, she only offered general reassurances.

Derek took my hand to lead me further into the room and I trembled. He rubbed my knuckles with his thumb, but it was an absent motion. A peek up at his profile and I could see that he had his own concerns spinning around in his head. As we neared the bed, I noticed the bedside table. Or rather, I noticed the neat collection of items set up there. The high-end stereo speakers that Simon and I had gone in on together for Christmas last year were there, with Derek's iPod neatly docked and opened to a playlist that I couldn't make out the name of. In front of that, there was a pretty impressive assortment of condoms, and off to one side sat a tube of what looked like hand lotion. As we drew nearer, I couldn't stop my blush when I realized what it really was.

"I know it won't fool anyone," Derek began, in the quick clipped tone that indicated he was explaining something he didn't really want to explain but felt like he had to, "but I thought if you'd feel better knowing that they can't hear everything then, well, there's the option."

He hit play, though I couldn't even process what the music was, then continued, waving in the general direction of the table to punctuate even though he wasn't really looking at it.

"Obviously neither of us has anything and the failure rate of the pill is pretty negligible, but that's assuming perfect use. So, if you want, we can use condoms too. You know, if you forgot any time recently or took it really off-schedule or something." He took a deep breath, then actually eyed the tube as he spoke.

"And since it's your first time, even if you feel… ready, we should still use that, because you won't be used to it, especially since I'm so, well, you're…"

My lips were pressed tightly together, but there was no way he could miss the laughter in my eyes.

Derek sighed heavily, though his mouth curved up at the corners.

"Overthought it, huh?" he asked.

I shook my head and stepped more closely to him, his rush to close his laptop when I'd walked into his room a week ago put into perspective.

"Nah, you thought about it just enough." I reached up to kiss him, softly. His mouth tasted like mint toothpaste.

"I love you," I said quietly.

There was nothing restrained in his grin.

"Course you do. I love you too."

We kissed again and I turned, backing up until my legs hit the side of the bed. I sat and pulled Derek down beside me so that we didn't have to break the kiss. I did break it a few minutes later though, but just to pull Derek's tank top off. We slowly shifted until our legs weren't dangling off the edge of the bed anymore and, situated more comfortably, Derek's hand began a lazy slide up under my nightgown. I was preoccupied with kissing and nuzzling his chest, but I smiled against him when his fingers clenched as he realized he'd made it all the way to my hip and felt nothing but skin.

Wearing underwear had struck me as fairly unnecessary, and when I shoved at Derek's sweatpants, trying and failing to pull them down, I found out that he'd had the same thought. I got distracted from my Get Derek Naked plan when he started fingering me, my nightgown pushed up to my waist now. I writhed, pressing myself against him, and the familiarity of it banished those last few dregs of anxiety. It helped that Derek had gotten really good at this.

He used his free hand to slide the straps of my nightgown down, baring my breasts. My nipples tightened almost painfully and Derek lowered his head to cautiously lick at one. I moaned, low and throaty, and he threw caution to the wind, clamping his mouth onto my breast and sucking in time with the rhythm of his fingers against my clit.

When my orgasm crashed through me, it was hard enough to make me dizzy. Derek kissed me deeply, swallowing my cries. He looked at me, pleased, as I kissed along his chin and neck, and his shoulders slumped, tension leaking out of them, when I finally got his sweats further down so that I could wrap my hand around him. He kicked them the rest of the way off as I stroked him, building to the rhythm I knew he liked. When his breath started to hitch, I slowed down, and Derek opened his eyes, glancing towards the bedside table.

"I didn't forget my pill," I told him as I paused to pull my nightgown over my head, then threw one leg across his hip, tugging him on top of me.

He grunted, sat up, and grabbed the lubricant instead. Then, he pulled me up as well and settled me on his thighs, straddling him.

"It can be better like this the first time," he informed me and looked so serious and dour about it that I had to lean in and nibble on his lips until i was sure he'd entirely forgotten what he'd been talking about. Emboldened instead of scared by the fact that we were finally, completely naked, I snatched the tube of lubricant from him and looked down.

I'd seen it before, in passing, a glance here or there, and I'd certainly touched it pretty regularly over the last six months, but I'd never had a chance to really look. There it was, jutting up from a nest of coarse black hair, and yes it was large, but so was Derek, in general, and I'd stopped being intimidated by him a long, long time ago. I still giggled nervously before, gripped by impulse, I leaned over and pressed one quick kiss on the tip. Derek made a strangled sound and I kept my eyes downcast — a bolt of sudden, belated shyness — as I squeezed lube onto my hand and rubbed it along his shaft. I could feel his gaze on me and when I looked up again, he kissed me. Not even that hard, just ardent and sincere.

"Make sure to go slowly," he said as I held him steady so I could position myself. "Don't try too much and only go as far as you're comfortable or else it'll hu-"

"Do you want to drive?" I asked, a familiar refrain from pretty much any time we traveled somewhere and Derek wasn't behind the wheel. He laughed, a deep rumble and shook his head.

"Not this time," he said as he pressed a kiss into my hair.

I put one hand on his shoulder for balance, then slid down. Derek groaned, his fingers clenching reflexively at my hip and I wiggled a bit, moving down further.

I felt stretched and full in a way and in places I'd never quite felt full before, but it didn't hurt. And when I shifted more, changing the angle until we were pressed as close together as possible, it did the exact opposite of hurt. My breath came in gasps as we rocked together, Derek's hands and mouth everywhere and me holding on for dear life as I lifted myself up, just a bit, then let myself slide back down with an undulation of my hips, again and again.

I wasn't sure how I thought it would feel. Maybe like his fingers had, but Derek was thick and hot and pliant in a way his fingers had never been. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his face and shoulders. Brain hazy and breath coming too fast, I wanted to lick his skin. So I did, latching on around his clavicle and working my way along his shoulders and up his neck. Derek's hand slid between us, rubbing and stroking, and I came with a keening half-shout, half-sob that I'd previously thought only happened in bad porn.

Derek's chest rose and fell rapidly, every muscle in his body tensed, and he was still hard inside of me. He scooted back further so that he was sitting up against the head of the bed, lifting me along with him, but not dislodging me.

"You okay?" he panted. I nodded against his shoulder and he put both hands on my waist, lifted me, then thrust upwards. I squeaked and he looked alarmed until I let my eyes fall closed and clenched around him. He thrust again, then again, building a rhythm that was faster and more forceful than mine had been. It was different, but still good. At first, I held onto the headboard to steady myself, but it threatened to slam into the wall one too many times, so I clutched at Derek's shoulders instead.

I reached down when his breath started to hitch, but I was still too sensitive, so I changed course and ran my fingers, caressing, around the base of his shaft instead. His groans had started to sound distinctly like growls, rough and frantic. I felt a rush of liquid heat inside and Derek rasped my name and a curse or two as he wrapped his arms tight around me, hips still jerking erratically.

"S'good?" he asked when he regained his voice.

I nestled against his chest, eyelids heavy.

"Yeah."

Our breathing had slowed and I'd dozed off, still on Derek's lap, wrapped in his arms, before he spoke again.

"About earlier, in the forest," he began and I cracked one eye open.

"If you apologize for that I'm going to slap you," I threatened.

I felt more than heard his laugh.

"I'm not sorry for that. It's only, I wasn't completely honest with you."

This actually motivated me to lift my head. Curiosity shot through me, chased by a sharp edge of anxiety.

"It wasn't a lie or anything," he assured me, reading my expression. "More, an omission. It turns out: werewolf mating instincts are a thing and not one they tweaked out of me."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and a small smile spread across my face.

"Well, even humans generally want to mate," I said, then wiggled in his lap a little as if in reminder. "At our age, more than usual."

He sighed and ran one hand through his hair, looking away, off across the room.

"It's a little different than that. More intense. So much so that I actually called Jeremy to ask him about it a few weeks ago." That really got my attention. Derek actually electing to have a conversation like that meant he'd been deeply concerned. "I was so distracted and tense. I couldn't stop thinking about you — more than usual — and could barely concentrate on anything else. And there were weird dreams."

"Anyway, he said that it's pretty normal for it to start kicking in at my age and it could stay between us since he trusted me to be responsible."

I waited. He wouldn't have been so nervous about telling me, wouldn't have felt as though he was being dishonest with me, unless there was more to it.

"It's not just the urge for sex," Derek said, finally meeting my eyes.

"Oh," I replied, then, "_Oh_."

He cupped my chin and his eyes were more scared than I'd ever seen them, even when he was Changing.

"Obviously we're not going to— " he rushed out, "that would be ridiculously stupid at our age and with you just starting school. (Though your aunt's face would almost be worth it.) But I'm not going to flip out or anything like that because we have to wait. It's still a lot and I'll understand if it's too much." I could feel him shifting, squaring his shoulders, but I couldn't look away from his eyes.

"I just need you to know, Chloe, this- this is it for me."

It was definitely a lot. A whole lot. And it certainly wasn't normal, not the thinking of it — tons of teenagers thought they'd be with their first love forever — but committing to it, knowing it the way I knew that I would always be into storytelling through film or otherwise, the way I knew that no matter how hard I tried some tiny, bitter part of me had never quite forgiven Aunt Lauren, knowing it the way I knew the touch of death and that it would come for everyone eventually. That wasn't normal at all. But we hadn't been normal, ever. That didn't have to be a bad thing.

A long time ago, before we'd even started figuring it out ourselves, a very nasty werewolf had mocked Derek about his protectiveness towards me, ridiculed him by saying that Derek had found himself a mate. I think it wasn't until after I introduced a switchblade to his femoral artery for hurting Derek that he realized: so had I.

"Me too," I said with more force than necessary, before wrapping my arms around Derek's neck and whispering it again into his mouth, "for me too."


End file.
